So, the LSST has been progressing according to schedule and the first light should happen next year. As an 8.4m telescope that will cover the entire sky every three days due to its large field of vision, it's expected to increase the number of catalogued small objects by a factor of 10 to 100.

It would be interesting to see how this impacts mission planning. On one hand, it makes it easier to find targets for asteroid capture similar to the ARM. Alternatively, it could provide targets to visit with the SpaceX starship as they zip through the Earth moon system.

And of course, less relevant to this sub-board but still interesting, it will discover a wide range of Kuiper belt objects and possibly planet nine.

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For a variable Isp spacecraft running at constant power and constant acceleration, the mass ratio is linear in delta-v. Δv = ve0(MR-1). Or equivalently: Δv = vef PMF. Also, this is energy-optimal for a fixed delta-v and mass ratio.

Doesn't the atmosphere filter out infrared? I am still of the opinion the NEOCam as proposed by Amy Mainzer is needed to get a good inventory of potential city killers and possible asteroid mining targets.

Especially the apoheles. Those rocks with a an aphelion < 1 A.U. are especially hard to see for ground based scopes.

Doesn't the atmosphere filter out infrared? I am still of the opinion the NEOCam as proposed by Amy Mainzer is needed to get a good inventory of potential city killers and possible asteroid mining targets.

Especially the apoheles. Those rocks with a an aphelion < 1 A.U. are especially hard to see for ground based scopes.

"One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to." - Elon Musk"There are lies, damned lies, and launch schedules." - Larry J

Right, it's not going to be as good at seeing infrared as anything in space, but it's going to be built on a tall mountain in Chile with excellent seeing & extremely dry air, and due to its larger size it's going to be an order of magnitude improvement over Pan-STARRS.

Being able to cover the entire sky every three days means it'll be better at finding moving objects in the visible light spectrum than basically anything else so far.

« Last Edit: 02/20/2019 06:32 pm by Nilof »

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For a variable Isp spacecraft running at constant power and constant acceleration, the mass ratio is linear in delta-v. Δv = ve0(MR-1). Or equivalently: Δv = vef PMF. Also, this is energy-optimal for a fixed delta-v and mass ratio.

It would be fun to speculate on what future telescopes of this kind could be built with BFR though. The BFR has a large enough diameter to put this kind of telescope in space.

With a bit of in space assembly, it would be fun to imagine a design similar to GAIA, but with a pair of LSST mirrors instead of those tiny rectangular mirrors. Being able to put monolithic 10 m telescopes in space will be a massive gamechanger.

For a variable Isp spacecraft running at constant power and constant acceleration, the mass ratio is linear in delta-v. Δv = ve0(MR-1). Or equivalently: Δv = vef PMF. Also, this is energy-optimal for a fixed delta-v and mass ratio.

Doesn't the atmosphere filter out infrared? I am still of the opinion the NEOCam as proposed by Amy Mainzer is needed to get a good inventory of potential city killers and possible asteroid mining targets.

Especially the apoheles. Those rocks with a an aphelion < 1 A.U. are especially hard to see for ground based scopes.

Most of the infrared spectrum is absorbed by the atmosphere, yes.

Another factor: It's possible to get scopes very cold at SEL1 or SEL2. A scope in low earth orbit has nearly half the sky filled with a 300 K heat source.

Amy Mainzer's scope had infrared as well as higher wavelengths. By simultaneously measuring heat as well as visible light reflected, we could get a good handle on an asteroid's albedo. And from that we could estimate size with some accuracy.

Regarding your noting Musk's HLV could launch a big scope -- I hadn't thought of that. A space scope with huge mirrors as well as huge CCD arrays would be a major game changer I would think.

Even with Musk's Starship, are people really gonna still stick with obscenely huge monolithic mirrors though? The expense involved is terrifying due to so much NRE, compared to splitting the risk with semi-mass produced mirror segments. JWST has shown a path to segmented space mirrors, and a Starship hauling a boatload of segments is comparatively easy. Assembling on orbit from basic building blocks seems to be the probable basic form of telescope creation from now on, unless you are actually making mirrors in space.

Even with Musk's Starship, are people really gonna still stick with obscenely huge monolithic mirrors though? The expense involved is terrifying due to so much NRE, compared to splitting the risk with semi-mass produced mirror segments. JWST has shown a path to segmented space mirrors, and a Starship hauling a boatload of segments is comparatively easy. Assembling on orbit from basic building blocks seems to be the probable basic form of telescope creation from now on, unless you are actually making mirrors in space.

AFAIK No one have assembled any telescope with separate segment pieces in orbit yet. Until someone assembled one successfully, monolithic mirror or deployable mirror segment telescopes seems a better choice to get funding.

For IR telescopes, I'm still a fan of lunar polar craters ... permanent shadow so very cold, with almost permanently lit limbs for power. Yes, they are difficult, but given the apparent focus on the Moon right now, perhaps an easier sell than in-orbit assembly

One big issue is they aren't marvellous for asteroid hunting as their view of the ecliptic is poor.